The Last Lies (Kate Murphy Mystery Book 1)

by C. C. Jameson

  How dare he cheat on me like that!

  With a shaky finger, tears streaming down her face, Kate scrolled all the way to the beginning of their chat, letting the device load up older messages as needed.

  She stepped into the kitchen to sit down, as though increasing the physical space between her and her husband could help her manage the situation better. But it didn’t. She scrolled through more hurtful messages until, a minute later, she finally reached the top of the conversation. The timestamp on his first message to her was nearly a year ago.

  “Fucking Matt!” she yelled. “How could you?”

  The shower stopped running. From a distance, Matt spoke up. “Kate? Is that you?”

  Kate yelled, “Who else would it be? Does Sam come to our place a lot?”

  Something crashed, like a shampoo bottle dropping to the floor. “What? What did you say?”

  Ten seconds later, Matt entered the kitchen, a towel wrapped around his hips. His hair was dripping wet, and his eyes shot missiles at Kate.

  “What did you just say?” he repeated.

  Kate waved his phone up in the air with one hand while she wiped her tears with the other. “You tell me, Matt.”

  “That’s my phone. You’ve got no right to go through it.” His nostrils flared as shades of crimson rose in his cheeks. “It was locked. How did you unlock it?”

  “Your weak-ass password? That’s what you’re worried about? Really? How do you think I set that baby picture before? Fuck you!”

  Kate couldn’t stand the sight of her own husband, so she tossed his phone onto the tabletop and stared at her feet and the cracked linoleum floor instead.

  He grabbed her elbow. “Woman, you have no right.”

  “Yeah. No. That’s where you’re wrong. What’s going on?” Kate asked while meeting his eyes again.

  Matt stared back. “Is this a trick question?”

  Kate inhaled deeply before answering. As though anger had blocked her tear ducts, she stopped crying as her hurt morphed into complete hatred for the man who stood in front of her. The father of her unborn baby. The man she’d married.

  “I never took you for a stupid person. I thought you were a good guy. A loving, generous partner who would be here for me, no matter what. Isn’t it what we said in our vows?” Kate shook her head. “You of all people understand what it’s like to be abandoned, to be left without anyone to trust. To lose everyone who matters to you. How could you go and betray my trust in you? How could you disrespect me like that?”

  He snarled then frowned at her. “Don’t you get why?”

  “Enlighten me, wise one. I can’t read your freaking mind!”

  “Don’t you see how you emasculate me every day with your job? I need to compensate for that.”

  “That’s what you call ‘fucking around with another woman’? It’s compensation? My job entitles you to that?”

  “Hell yeah. You won’t let me be the protector. You won’t let me express myself and perform my core duty as the man that I am. If I can’t be the one you rely on for your security, then I need to be that man for someone else. It’s your fault.”

  “Fuck you. I was a cop before you married me. I even insisted on keeping my last name, and you were fine with it. That protector excuse is bullshit. You say it’s my fault that you’ve been cheating on me? Like I somehow forced you to thrust your dick in between another woman’s legs? For nearly a year!” Kate shook her head. “And Sam is probably not the only one. Am I right?”

  His eyebrows scrunched up. “None of your business, woman.”

  “What?! Your extramarital activities are most definitely my business. You need to put an end to this if you care the least about me… or if you want me to keep this baby—”

  “You’re keeping my baby. I’ve waited a long time for this to happen. You finally did your job as my wife. You can’t take it away now.”

  “You’re kidding, right? All you wanted was for me to make you babies? You’re ridiculous. When we met, didn’t I make it clear to you that I wasn’t a stay-at-home kind of gal?”

  “A woman’s place is at home. You’re no exception. It didn’t matter what you said. It was just a matter of time before you finally saw the light. And I knew I could push destiny in the right direction if I had to.”

  “By messing with my birth-control pills? That’s what you mean? What else did you do to ‘force it to happen’? Anything else I should know?”

  He winced, probably surprised that Kate had figured that one out. “I don’t owe you anything.”

  Every detail Kate had ever known about her husband had been proven wrong, or at the very least become questionable. Their entire love story had just crumbled to dust.

  If that’s how he felt, why had he pursued her in the first place? Had he ever felt any genuine love toward her at any point?

  He couldn’t have faked all of it, right?

  Was it all a big pile of lies? Had everything just been a pile of manipulative lies?

  It was too broad of a question to be addressed right this minute. Kate rolled her eyes, clenching her jaw. “I so want to hit you right now…”

  He laughed and stepped closer to Kate. Then he lowered his voice. “Do that, and see where that leads you, woman. I’ve been good to you. I haven’t laid a hand on you… yet.” With the back of two fingers, he stroked her cheek. “But that can change. You decide.”

  “Fuck you,” she said, before punching him in the jaw with her dominant hand.

  His head bounced from the sucker punch, then he rubbed his jaw. The sound of his sudden inhale and the sight of his flaring nostrils sent a chill down her spine.

  A second later, he slapped her.

  The sharp sting of his palm burned Kate’s cheek, but it was nothing compared to the pain in her heart.

  These are his true colors.

  She’d married that guy.

  “Shit, woman. Count yourself lucky to be pregnant. You’re so disrespectful,” he hissed. “I wish I could give you the beating you deserve.”

  “Yeah? Is that so?” Kate inhaled slowly, trying to calm her boiling temper. She so wanted to punch him again, but she knew it was a slippery slope. She’d never tested the limits of angry Matt, and she didn’t want to find them right now. She needed to step away from the situation. Get the upper hand once again. But how?

  She stomped out of the kitchen and into the bedroom where she changed out of her jeans and work shirt and into her running gear, including her phone and earbuds.

  Matt intercepted her just before she left the apartment. His shoulder rested on the wall by the front door; his extended arm blocked the door, preventing her from swinging open the only exit.

  “You’re not going for a run now. It’s late, and it’s dark,” he stated in an authoritative voice.

  Reaching around his arm and ignoring his remarks, she unlocked the deadbolt.

  “Didn’t you hear me?” Matt yelled.

  She looked at him. His jaw was clenched, his eyes icy. The handsome man she’d married had turned into that.

  “I heard you loud and clear,” Kate said, her eyes shooting darts at him.

  She followed the instincts that her police and self-defense training had instilled in her. She twisted his hand at an uncomfortable angle, which forced him to bend his arm and let go of the wall. After elbowing him in the stomach, she kneed him in the groin.

  He bent forward, gasping for air and that’s when Kate swung open the door and ran out.

  She sprinted down the hallway and pushed open the staircase door. Kate descended the stairs faster than she ever had then rushed outside, sucking the air into her lungs. The night was dark and chilly, not unlike her marriage.

  With long strides, she ran eastward on the sidewalk, every step helping her clear her mind and lessen her anger.

  When she reached the end of the second block, she heard a voice call her name. Kate turned around.

  Was that Matt? She couldn’t see him, but who else would it be?


  What difference would it make to stop and return to him?

  No, better keep running away from him. Let him cool off in his own way while she did it her way.

  Maybe the discussion could continue between two real adults by the time she got back.

  No. Impossible.

  Who was she kidding? Matt wasn’t going to suddenly change his behavior. Not after what had just happened. She simply couldn’t go back home right now. Maybe she could spend the night at Kenny’s.

  But first she had to work her anger off.

  She increased her pace and continued running straight ahead. Block after block she ran, only changing directions when red traffic lights would have let her heartbeat slow down. The rhythm of her pulse gave her the strength to deal with the situation. Letting it slow down would take her out of the quasi-meditative state that running created.

  Next thing she knew, Kate passed the entrance of a city park. Without thinking, she headed down the unlit pathway, away from the street. The beats of her current song came to an end, and in the silent lull before the next song started, Kate heard her husband’s voice again, far in the distance.

  What? Is he still running after me?

  Kate stopped and turned around, looking for him, but couldn’t see him in the darkness around her. She pulled her earbuds out, to see if she could hear him call out her name again.

  Silence.

  Until a voice spoke up two feet to her right. “Your phone and your money. Now!” a skinny Caucasian man ordered, his shaking hand pointing a knife at Kate.

  She raised her hands in the air, still holding her phone and trying to assess the situation. He was much taller than her. She didn’t know if he had friends nearby. His skin was pale, his eyes bloodshot and blinking rapidly.

  “Now!” he repeated, exposing missing teeth in his grunt. He staggered forward, his knife now within stabbing range.

  He’s just a junkie. I can take him.

  Kate lowered her phone slowly, leaving her other hand in the air. Just as she saw the man grin in anticipation of getting his goods, her free hand karate chopped the knife out of the man’s hand, knocking it to the ground.

  The man jumped on her in a rush of rage that surprised her. He pushed her onto the ground and landed on top of her hips then started punching her. She blocked the first punch with her elbow, but the second from his other hand landed right on her neck, causing Kate to choke. Air could no longer come in. She coughed, unable to defend herself. She had to get air. She brought her hands to her neck to protect herself while the man kept punching her, now in the chest and stomach.

  Pain shot through her body, but nothing could be done now.

  Darkness had swallowed her.

  Chapter Eight

  Regular high-pitch beeps peppered the air around Kate. Her attempt at swallowing her saliva felt like razor blades sliding down her throat. She coughed, which sent shooting pains throughout her body. The moan that had escaped her own lips surprised her, and the increased cadence of the beeps around her worried her.

  What’s going on?

  “Kate?”

  She slowly blinked away the brightness of the lights above her, trying to push away her mental fog and figure out where she was.

  “Kate?” the man repeated. She tried to turn her head, but couldn’t, her movements encumbered by both pain and something hard wrapped around her neck.

  Is this Matt?

  When she tried to speak, nothing but painful coughing noises came out of her.

  “Don’t speak. It’s me, Matt. Everything will be all right.”

  Kate brought her hands up to feel the side of her neck and realized she was wearing a brace. She moved her eyes to the right, toward the sound of her husband’s voice.

  “You’ve been beaten up pretty bad, baby. But you’ll be alright.”

  Why is he calling me baby?

  Who else is in here?

  Images of the man punching her in the park came back, and her brief episode of consciousness faded away into nothingness once more.

  When Kate awoke again who knew how many hours—or days—later, Matt was gone.

  As far as she could see from her peripheral vision, she was alone in her room, and a moot attempt at turning her head reminded her that she simply couldn’t—and shouldn’t—try again. She wiggled her fingers and noticed a plastic remote in her right hand, which she assumed would emit a noise, or possibly trigger an alarm at the nurses’ station.

  So, she pressed the circular button and waited.

  Would the weird, numbing pain that reverberated throughout her entire body become a permanent side-effect to her injuries?

  How stupid was I?

  I should have just handed the junkie my phone. I know better.

  Stupid, stupid, stupid.

  “Kate, you’re awake. Good,” said a skinny brunette wearing scrubs. Her brown eyes seemed too small for her face. “My name is Ursula, and I’m the nurse on duty.”

  Kate tried to speak, but nothing came out of her but strange, coarse, muted sounds, which triggered sharp stabs of pain in her throat.

  “No. Please do not try to speak. You’ll only make it worse for yourself. I just saw the doctor doing his rounds. Would you like him to come and talk to you?” Ursula asked. “Just give me a thumbs-up or blink once if you’d like that.”

  Kate made a fist with her right hand and raised her thumb. At least her upper limbs still worked.

  Ursula left the room, and Kate decided to see if her lower limbs worked as well. She wiggled her toes. Although she was lying horizontally and couldn’t see them to know for sure, she felt the sheets rubbing against her toes, so all seemed well there. At least.

  The doctor walked in about five minutes later.

  “Welcome back,” he said as he began elevating the back portion of her bed. “Looks like you were in a pretty bad fight.”

  Kate couldn’t reply, not that she would have known what to say in response to the doctor’s comments.

  “You want to know what’s going on, right? Blink once for yes. Twice for no.”

  Kate blinked once as she watched the doctor step toward the foot of her bed again.

  “Here’s what we know.” He pulled up her chart. “Your husband brought you here unconscious in an ambulance. You were beaten up pretty bad. You have countless contusions on your body, neck, and face. Your nose is broken, you have four stitches on your forehead.

  “It’s a good thing the paramedics got there when they did. Your trachea had collapsed, preventing you from breathing, so they had to cut a hole under the swollen area, and they inserted a tube, so you could breathe again. You got what we call a temporary tracheostomy.”

  Kate’s hand automatically went up to her throat. What? Her fingers felt the bit of tubing sticking out of her neck now that she knew it was there.

  The doctor shook his head, his eyes round. “You’re one extremely lucky woman. The punch to the throat could have been fatal. It was so fortunate that your husband spotted you and called an ambulance right away. You must have been born under one very lucky star. You were without oxygen for a few minutes. Based on the CT scan, neither your larynx nor hyoid bone were broken. I believe your vocal chords are intact, but the area is too swollen right now for us to know for sure.”

  Once again, Kate was taken by surprise. When did she do a CT scan? She was probably sleeping or strongly medicated when they did it. Lots of blurred memories occupied her brain.

  “Additionally, you have two broken ribs on your right side. You won’t be able to speak, eat, or drink normally for a while. But I expect you’ll make a full recovery, and your throat should be back to normal in a few weeks. We should be able to remove the stoma and let your body return to its normal breathing and eating patterns in a few days. The scar won’t be big. Just a tiny mark on your neck. Your nose will likely heal without the need for reconstructive surgery afterward. That’s the good news.”

  Kate let his words sink in, wondering which part
of her long list of injuries sounded good to him. Then she pointed her index finger and rotated it multiple times, hoping he’d understand that she wanted to hear the rest of it.

  When people talk about the good news, the bad news always follows.

  “You understand what I just said?”

  Kate blinked once then repeated her circular finger motion.

  “Now for the bad news. Your husband told us you were pregnant.”

  Again, Kate blinked once.

  “I’m sorry. The injuries to your body… You miscarried.”

  Hot tears rolled down her cheeks. Her unborn baby was no more.

  Kate had no idea how long ago she’d been admitted in the hospital, but whether it was just hours or days, she couldn’t believe she had considered getting an abortion back then. Now that the decision was no longer hers to make, now that the universe—or God or fate—had decided otherwise, she felt an immense loss.

  “Once again, I’m sorry for your loss. I recommend you get some rest. Your husband told us we didn’t need to contact anyone else, but I wanted to check with you now that you’re fully awake and the stronger painkillers have worn off. Is there someone else you’d like us to contact?”

  Kate blinked. Once. Twice. Three times.

  “Okay, okay. Let me grab a board and marker, and you can write down that person’s contact information.”

  What seemed like an eternity later, Ursula the nurse came back with a board in hand.

  “Sorry, the doctor had to go and deal with an emergency, but he told me you needed us to contact someone else?”

  Kate blinked once, and the nurse offered Kate the board and marker. “If you write it down, I’ll call whoever you need me to call. I’ll be back in a few minutes.”

  And with her words still hanging in the air, the nurse placed the marker in Kate’s right hand and left the board on her chest. Thankfully the white object was small and light, but she definitely felt those broken ribs on her right side.

  She wrote down Kenny’s name and number. She knew a police officer would have been dispatched along with the ambulance, but since she didn’t remember seeing one—either in the park or since she’d awoken at the hospital—Kate figured she might as well add her supervisor’s name to the board. She didn’t know his number, though. But it was saved in her phone.